Pew: ‘MSNBC was more negative in its treatment of Romney than Fox was of Obama’ (Poynter/EU)

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Between the last week of August and the third week of October, 38 percent of campaign coverage studied by Pew’s Project for Excellence in Journalism was “what is typically called horserace coverage, stories substantially concerned with the strategy and tactics of the campaign and the question of who was winning.” In 2008, 53 percent of the coverage during an analogous time period could be so characterized.

Interestingly, Mitt Romney’s campaign fared considerably worse in PEJ’s analysis of the “tone” of campaign coverage — until horse-race stories were removed. Then both his and President Obama’s campaign received essentially the same treatment from the press.

Obama got more positive coverage than Romney before the first debate — though the study notes that was mostly because Romney got so much bad press in September. After the first debate, “the coverage in effect reversed,” the study says. “In all, 20% of stories about Romney were favorable, 30% unfavorable, and 50% mixed — a differential of 10 points to the negative. For Obama, 13% of stories were favorable, 36% unfavorable, and 50% mixed — a differential of 23 points.”

Coverage by platform

The most striking coverage differences compared to 2008 appear on cable TV and in newspapers. Pew finds that the ideological differences in 2012 coverage were “even more pronounced, and is no longer quite a mirror image. MSNBC was more negative in its treatment of Romney than Fox was of Obama, though both stand out significantly from the rest of the media studied.”

“This year, of the 259 segments studied about Romney during the eight-week period, just 3% were positive in nature while 71% were negative. Four years ago, 10% of MSNBC’s coverage about McCain was positive while 73% was negative.”

There was an important difference in newspaper coverage as well. Pew found that newspaper coverage of Obama shifted from 45 percent positive in 2008 to 70 percent mixed in 2012.

“These numbers also represent a significant change from 2008 when Obama enjoyed a large advantage in the tone of newspaper coverage over his rival John McCain,” Pew reports.